Amy Rothschild, a prekindergarten and kindergarten teacher in Washington DC, knows the world of early childhood education. She knows the value of giving children a kick start in developmental and academic skills, especially kids from disadvantaged families and neighborhoods. So why is she giving Secretary of Education Arne Duncan a hard time? Arne Duncan who recently claimed that “education is the civil rights issue of our time”; who when announcing Federal grants for improving early childhood education called this “the most important single step we can take to improve the future of our young people,” never mentioning the real world of Ferguson and the death of Michael Brown, the real world of civil rights in 2014.
In her insightful essay, “Where the Promise of Preschool Ends,” Amy calls out Arne Duncan and all the other politicians for their “one size fits all” approach to social problems and their sweeping claims that this or that policy will solve all the problems of the poor and disenfranchised. It’s the same approach that is being used in standardized testing that dictates that all kids will learn “this way” and will answer all the questions “this way.” “Where the Promise of Preschool Ends,” originally published in Dissent, challenges this easy-out mind set and puts Arne Duncan—and all of us—on notice that solving the deep rooted racism and classism of this country, and thus improve all children’s’ lives, will take more than proclamations and wishful thinking. It’s a powerful piece, but one gently told, and worth the read.

Most teachers are curious about what school is like for a student. Meet a kindergarten tyke encountering the classroom for the first time; a middle schooler trying to balance body chemistry, a developing mind and new ways of learning; a high school teenager looking beyond the classroom into the world and most teachers want to hear how he or she is experiencing one of the most important parts of their lives.

So when I saw my 11 year old niece recently I asked her how school was going. I was prepared for the standard kid response—“fine.” What I wasn’t prepared for was the sudden sound of defeat in her answer.

Kim’s a pretty bouncy young girl. Just before I asked my question she had given me a tour of her newly decorated room. No more pink princess motif. Now it was retro 60s décor—lava lamp, peace symbol shades, shiny bead curtain across the closet door. She proudly twirled a baton as she announced, “I’m on the cheerleader squad.” She showed me her laptop, her school books, the age old array of glittery pens.

“So, how’s school, fifth grade this year, right?” I asked. Kim’s face fell, all the bounce—and light—went out of her. “I’m not an A student,” she whispered and looked down at the floor. If you knew Kim, her evident shame and embarrassment would surprise you as much as it did me. It took a lot to extinguish her usual enthusiasm about life, including school.

I couldn’t let that stand. “Yeah, well that’s just grades. What about the rest of it? Do you like your school? How about your teacher?” It didn’t take much to turn the light back on. She loved her teacher, the school, the interesting projects they had been doing.

“It’s that damn Common Core Curriculum,” her mother told me after Kim went off to play. “It’s killing her. It’s killing a lot of the other kids too. She’s working hard and I’m getting her extra help but she’s so down on herself.” We talked about the frustration she and other parents were having with the new imposed standards, standards that baffled them. I told her that they weren’t the only ones angry and mystified about what was happening in their children’s schools. Many teachers shared the same frustration with the curriculum changes imposed on schools by Federal standards, including the lack of implementation funds and clear direction on how to make it all work—and not hurt kids in the process.

I left that family gathering not feeling very exuberant myself. As much as I could sympathize with Kim’s mother and the other parents, I was haunted, disturbed and saddened by that young girl’s answer, “I’m not an A student.”
It was painful enough to see the shame on Kim’s face. But when I thought about it further I realized that her experience wasn’t an isolated one. Kids across the country are faced with that same sense of personal failure. They know the stakes are high these days. They learn in an environment that aims to “Race to the Top.” They live at a time when education pundits claim that “data is the great equalizer,” and schools, instead of having “walls of fame” celebrating student achievement in all walks of life, now have “data walls” displaying each student’s rank based on test performance. Today’s kids know that their personal academic performance affects not only themselves but also their teachers, their principals and ultimately the fate of their schools. What other generation has grown up with that kind of pressure, that kind of fear?

A growing of number of parents and school districts are raising objections to the Common Core curriculum. Some parents are actively resisting high stakes testing, refusing to have their children participate in standardized tests. In response to these “opt out” decisions some districts have taken punitive measures and penalized the students for their parents’ actions by denying them the right to participate in team sports and after school activities; while others have implemented “sit and stare” policies in which the students not taking the test must sit in the testing room and do nothing for hours.

While parents and school boards fight these battles at the local, state and Federal levels, I’m afraid that we are losing kids by the day. Kids are giving up, are being made to feel like failures because they can’t jump through the shape-shifting hoops of the latest educational reform. If we don’t do something soon we are allowing the love of learning with which children are born and which will flourish with proper nurturing to be trampled as America races to the top—of what?

Today’s contributor to “Teachers in Their Own Words” is Teresa, a fourth year math teacher at a New Mexico reservation high school. Teresa has a place of honor in this series since it was an email she sent me about teaching young Native Americans that gave me the idea to ask teachers to write about their experiences as educators. In this thoughtful piece, “A Reservation Teacher Considers Change, Traditions and Meeting Students’ Needs,” Teresa raises issues about the constantly changing landscape of schools these days—new programs, new standards, new tests. She doesn’t reject change out of hand because, as she writes, change “is an everyday occurrence” for teachers. But she does question changes that are made with no consideration of student needs or the traditions of the community of which the school is a part. This is particularly important on Native American reservations where tradition is an essential yet endangered part of life. In exploring these ideas Teresa does something that doesn’t occur often enough in schools. She has a conversation with students, asking them for their views and ideas about education and how schools should be structured. It’s refreshing to see that kind of respectful dialog taking place, and it can only enhance her students’ learning.

Change. To some, this word is scary. To others, it is invigorating. For teachers, it is an everyday occurrence.

The other day, I had an interesting conversation with one of my students. To start, the student asked me “How come we don’t go home at 12:30, like in California?” Now, I know not every high school in CA has a half-day schedule, but apparently this student attended one in the past. This question led us into an in-depth discussion of why schools are organized the way they are. Another student joined in on the conversation, and we discussed other options for high schools: why not offer night classes? Why not let high school students sleep in, go to work in the morning, then come to school for a few hours in the afternoon (perhaps between lunch and dinner)? And why on earth do high school students go to school for eight hours a day, only to go home and do two to four more hours of homework?

Let me give you some background information. I was homeschooled all the way through 12th grade. By the time I was high school-aged, my mom would get me started on my assignments in the morning, then I’d work independently while she kept my 5 younger siblings busy. If I had questions about math, I would call my dad. If I had any other questions, I would grab my mom between Fractions activities and Phonics lessons. Rarely would my work occupy me past 12:30, at which time I would practice my piano, complete my chores for the day, and help keep my youngest sibling entertained. Imagine my surprise, then, when I entered college and discovered that high school teachers are truly expected to fill 8 hours every day with lessons only, then give their students work to do at home. Where has family time gone? When will my students find time to choose personally enriching activities? When will they have time to make some extra money? This last question is especially pertinent with my students, high school teens living on a New Mexico reservation, who often help the family “make ends meet.”

Unfortunately, educators have endured so many changes in the past decade that they respond to new ideas with either “What’s the point?” or “Why change it now?” Every year, teachers face new expectations, new administrators, and lately, even new standards. But every time these changes occur, teachers sit back and say, “It’ll change again next year.” They don’t buy-in anymore because nothing sticks around. As a result, when truly good changes are suggested they get lost in the shuffle, or are placed on the back burner while mandatory (a.k.a. monetarily-endorsed) changes are implemented. When are schools going to stop and think that maybe all these changes, “improvements,” aren’t as good as they are presented? When are schools going to figure out how to weed out the unnecessary, unhelpful changes, in order to make room for reasonable, current ideas? And when are we going to stop requiring students to spend 16 hours a day on school?

In the community where I work, there is a stronger-than-average resistance to change. I believe this stems from Native Americans’ deeply rooted ties to history. In this community, students and adults grasp at their traditions, while trying to sweep themselves into the future. The Native Americans I work with search daily for the balance between the old and the new. Even in schools, drastic changes can feel like an abandonment of the past, which is like forgetting “where we come from.” For most Americans, our histories are so jumbled that we do not consider it in our daily decisions (personally, my family stems from about 5 different countries, and I cling to the traditions of none). Natives’ history, on the other hand, has been so suppressed that they cling to every thread.

I’ve always felt that my schooling experience has been both an advantage and a disadvantage. I am advantaged because I did not spend the first 18 years of my life going through “the system”; thus, I am completely open to new ideas. However, as a teacher I am disadvantaged because I do not realize how many of these ideas have been sifted through the system already. I may not be jaded, but I still swing a little to the other extreme: naiveté. We teachers need to work together to find the happy medium.

At the end of my conversation with my students, we agreed that the “solution” is to phase out teachers who are stuck in the old ways, and fill schools with teachers open to change. Unfortunately, this boils down to only hiring teachers who have been teaching 5 years or less. Never would I suggest this actually take place because then schools would lose the wisdom and experience of our veteran teachers. But the two generations of educators need to work together to keep schools current. We don’t need fancy equipment and artistically-designed school buildings. We just need to be open to reasonable, practical changes. We need to adjust to meet our students’ needs… Isn’t that the whole point?

One of the goals of “Teachers in Their Own Words” has been to give teachers a voice in the “education reform” debate. It has been a place where teachers can talk about what’s important to them as professionals. For some that has meant the larger issues of curriculum, evaluation and training; for others, the day to day challenges and delights of the classroom. Whatever the topic, each contributor has spoken as a practitioner, as someone “on the front-lines.” They are the ones who spend their days with students and so know what real, hands-on education looks like, feels like; what works and doesn’t. Along with that variety of viewpoints and concerns the educational settings have been diverse and wide-ranging—reservation high school, release program for young offenders, community college, kindergarten, juvenile detention, independent learning, ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages), middle school.

Now Hillary Greene, who has written for the series in the past, has opened the 2014 conversation even further in her guest piece, “Life in the Classroom: An International Teacher’s Room”. The piece serves as a great introduction to a shared blog, “Instruments of Change: The World’s Teachers,” that she and two other teachers from other countries have begun as a way to explore the big question, “What does it mean to be a teacher?” As in everything Hillary writes, “Life in the Classroom: An International Teacher’s Room” isn’t afraid to challenge not just the ideas of reformers but her colleagues as well. But she does it with a gentle and practiced hand, just what you’d expect from a middle school teacher (she has taught middle school for three years in independent, public, and public charter settings in Massachusetts and New Hampshire) who recently wrote in an email to me that “it’s never the kids that are the tough part of this job…” I’m looking forward to reading “Instruments of Change: The World’s Teachers” as it evolves and invite you to stop into their International Teacher’s Room to hear the latest in this global conversation.

Life in the Classroom: An International Teacher’s Room

Last summer, I was sitting in an art-filled café in Exeter, New Hampshire reading Linda Darling-Hammond’s The Flat World and Education. Page after page, I dutifully read and made my margin notes about the successful performance of students in places like Finland and Singapore when a simple question dawned on me, “I wonder what it’s like to teach in other places?” I wanted to find out.

Since becoming a teacher three school years ago, I have reflected daily on the challenges of this profession. I know that my job is much different than the one I envisioned my teachers doing back when I was a K-12 student; like anything, it’s hard to imagine until actually living through it.

Then last year, I started to write about teaching. It was a way to think aloud about my experience in a way I couldn’t do at school. I wrote about the need to nurture teachers and create environments for collaboration rather than isolation (The Coffee Crisis), and another piece about how teachers’ ignorance of big-picture policy changes in education causes our autonomy in the classroom to suffer (Not Enough to “Just” Teach).

Despite the challenges of being a teacher, one aspect consistently sustains me: my relationships with students. I teach middle school, a fragile age where, above all, kids want to feel like someone “gets” them. They’re looking for unconditional acceptance as they try out versions of themselves, some combination of which will one day stick. They possess a refreshing ability to be vulnerable and open in ways that adults have often left behind.

Even in my relatively short amount of time as a teacher, I see that although this openness and availability flourishes in middle school relationships, it remains in short supply among the adults in a school. I’m not without blame; sometimes it’s easier to shut my door, work through lunch, and breathe a bit rather than seek out colleagues, collaborate, or, basically, be available. But there’s certainly something about this profession that makes us close ourselves off, both regretful of the isolation but reluctant to open up.

So this brings me back to that café in New Hampshire. I wondered if teachers in such paragons of educational achievement as Finland and Singapore have the same challenges I have experienced. I wondered if their professional relationships are different from mine. I wondered what their lives are like outside of school compared to teachers’ lives here. I wondered how others in their culture perceive their choice to join the teaching profession.

With the help of my brother who has lived abroad, I reached out to public school teachers that he knew around the world, and I found two willing (and available!) volunteers: Thom in France and Emily in Australia who like me teach 5th through 7th graders. We launched our comparative teaching blog in August, and we write every few weeks about our lives as teachers. We have written several diary entries of a “typical” day in our schools, and we’ve written on other topics including our teacher preparation programs, our choices to become teachers, assessment in schools, and more. We will write until May and continue to discover what it means to teach, whether in the US, France, or Australia.

Ironically, we’ve never met each other. Yet, through this shared experience of written reflection, I am able to visit them in their classrooms and host them in mine. Just like our students, we want someone to “get” us, and now we have each other.

This isn’t about teachers being afraid that they’ll be knifed in class, or have their cars stolen in the bad neighborhoods where they teach. Nor are they worried that a disruptive student will threaten them, or that a disturbed gunman will invade their school. It’s not about being berated by an angry parent, or accused of being unfair—or something far worse—by a student.

It’s a different kind of fear. I only began to understand this fear after I started the series “Teachers in Their Own Words” that I’ve been running here on “Kids in The System.”

I follow the education reform debate closely. Over time I realized that most of the voices raised in this debate were those of people who had nothing to do with the classroom. The obvious question was, “What do politicians, business executives, clergy, academic researchers know about teaching?” The people who would know best—teachers—were rarely heard. Yet the ones I knew and came in contact with were eager to talk about what they did. It was a decidedly different conversation from the ones the pundits and critics were having. Yes, most teachers lamented mandated testing, the loss of classroom autonomy and a one-size-fits-all curriculum shaped by test results. But most were happiest talking about what teaching has always been about: students and the amazing things they do (or don’t do, given the day).

So I decided to invite teachers from a variety of educational settings to share their experiences, to talk about why they teach and who they teach, and to tell the stories that keep them in the classroom.

Over the nine months that the series ran, I learned a lot. About what it was like teaching high school on a New Mexico reservation. About the challenges of teaching young offenders either still in prison or in a release program. The Monday after the Sandy Hook shootings, a kindergarten teacher shared the joy she felt talking and singing and having an ordinary day with her very much alive little people. Another teacher wrote about the difficulties of teaching English Language Learners and the burden that Common Core put on her and her students. I heard about the importance of community college as a stepping stone to success for new citizens, older learners and younger students making their way. One teacher told readers why she planned on spending a weekend in Washington DC for an “Occupy Education” event, while another explored the weaknesses of the Common Core curriculum and its far-reaching impact. There was the poignant “resignation letter” from a young teacher who had “had enough,” deciding to leave public education for a private school because she felt disloyal to all she believed teaching should be. And then there was the teacher who felt that the only way she could stay in education was to leave it, immersing herself in a student self-directed learning program.

In approaching teachers to write for the series I was surprised how many at first hesitated. It wasn’t because they were too busy or didn’t have anything to say. Some had even written drafts and then gotten cold feet about going public. None of the articles were vindictive or critical of their school administrations. None were personal attacks or a fault finding feast. If anything the pieces were warmhearted, funny, and insightful. What criticism there was was directed toward our national education policy and its harmful effect on students. Still, in the end, a few teachers backed out altogether while others asked that their full name not be used or that their schools’ location be purposely vague.

And there’s the fear. Teachers were worried that somehow they would get in trouble with their school administrators. From what many teachers report there’s a strong message being given to teaching staffs: Don’t rock the boat. Don’t ask questions. Don’t bring up the inconvenient truth, say, of a school policy implemented to meet a national mandate that contradicts current research or best practices. In such an atmosphere of distrust, powerlessness, and alienation from what should be a culture of collegiality and collaboration what choices do teachers have but to hunker down and try to survive? After all, these days, teacher evaluations have become just as high stakes as student testing.

According to a MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, teacher satisfaction has slipped from 65% in 2008 to only 39% in 2012. Perhaps this fear of speaking out is contributing to that dissatisfaction. The sample of teachers that I encountered may seem small and therefore inconclusive. And maybe it’s just a coincidence that teachers from different schools and different parts of the country felt this fear, this need for caution. But it’s enough to make me wonder what is going on in our schools when teachers are afraid to engage in sincere democratic discourse, a process that we have always valued and that we teach our students is an essential ingredient of a healthy country.

Although teachers spend their days surrounded by people— albeit little, and younger people—it’s still an isolating job. For many of us in the classroom, the vitality and the support to do our jobs comes from colleagues. Ideas exchanged, “problem students” talked over, “try this” suggestions for lessons are what keep teachers professional, motivated and, frankly, human. In the latest contribution to the “Teachers in Their Own Words” series, “The Coffee Crisis: Do Teachers Have to Feel Alone?” which originally appeared in Education Week, Hillary Greene writes in what at first appears to be a lighthearted way about the isolation and lack of collegiality that is taking over our schools. What is missing, she writes, is not just free, decent coffee in the staff room but the space, time and freedom to share with each other. The current standardized curriculum leaves little room for children to be creative and to learn the art of community. This limited, locked-step model holds true for teachers as well, leading people like Hillary to worry, “that I’m losing my voice.” Hillary, who has taught middle school for three years in independent, public, and public charter settings in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, need not worry. As you’ll see, her voice is strong, courageous, and wise.

The Coffee Crisis: Do Teachers Have to Feel Alone?

Everybody knows that a good house party, no matter how enticing the dining room, ends up in the kitchen. Surrounded by the comfort of food and drink, we relax and bond. We say things we wouldn’t say in the dining room.

Yet, in this nation that “runs on Dunkin’,” some schools appear to be cutting back on staff-room provisions as a budgetary precaution. So while Google generously—and shrewdly—provides copious amounts of first-class nourishment to its employees, teachers often can’t get a free cup of coffee.

And while a cut like this may seem relatively insignificant, I’m convinced it harms teaching and learning.

Without coffee to induce them to linger in the staff room, teachers have lost their kitchen space. And gone are the conversations that used to occur there, where the most productive (and completely unscheduled) meetings would often occur. Somehow, encounters in front of vending machines tucked in some tiny, darkened room do not produce the same effect.

But this isn’t really about coffee. This is about teacher voice and collaboration.

An Isolating Profession

I decided to become a teacher four years ago, due to some combination of a desire to have an impact on others and indecision about what else to do. Also involved on some level were the collapse of the economy and an interest in heeding President Obama’s call for top students to pursue public service and teaching.

I learned to teach middle school humanities in an alternative-licensure program at an independent school in Cambridge, Mass. Around the seminar table, we soon-to-be teachers grappled with questions of equal access to great education while we swapped tales from teaching that day. Between classes and after school, the teachers’ staff room provided not only free coffee, but also free peanut butter and crackers, so people congregated. In that cozy space, I practiced an important aspect of teaching: bonding with colleagues. Another teacher’s “Patrick” sounded like “James” in my class, so we talked and shared experiences. We all laughed together when a stressed teacher ran in to get a coffee and exclaimed, “I have to remember I’m not running the Pentagon!”

I stepped into my first teaching job filled to the brim with ideas about teaching and learning. But I completely underestimated all it takes to be an effective teacher (and how infrequently bathroom breaks occur). Making matters worse, my school offered none of the opportunities for collaboration and informal conversation among teachers that I had experienced in my training program. I tried to figure out my next social studies unit during 30-second conversations in the copy room. A 20-minute conversation with a social worker seemed like a rare treat. I spent most hours at my computer, drowning alone.

Still hopeful, I stepped into my second dream job this past fall at a first-year public charter school, but it has proven to be no different. I find myself reflecting relentlessly: Does public school teaching really have to be this isolating?

Losing My Voice

The greatest disappointment for me as a teacher has been how little intellectual exchange there is among educators. On the way to a staff meeting, I still catch myself running through my dream agenda: First, we’ll reflect on the prevalence of ADHD and the implications for us, after which we’ll all step back and think about whether more—not fewer—music classes could improve our math scores and students’ experiences. Then we’ll think about the rapidly growing use of iPads in the classroom and what that might mean for instruction. Instead, in reality, I quietly enter the meeting room, sip my tea, and chime in when I must because perhaps my professional opinion matters on where recycling bins could be stored or maybe the department head just got to my students on her list of numbers—that is, students—not meeting assessment proficiency.

At these get-togethers, the party never moves out of the dining room.

I have occasionally worked up the nerve to ask kitchen questions in the dining room, but the results have not been good. During an IEP meeting, I brought up the issue of racial identity for a struggling African-American boy in a predominantly white, affluent school. For that, I was called a “loose cannon.” At another meeting, I divulged that I felt more like a proctor than a literature teacher due to the frequency of assessments. For that, I was made to feel as though I misunderstood the whole purpose of assessment. I have questioned many aspects of the way my school operates, and I have stated my views more directly as my experience as a teacher has grown. For that, I have been urged to be more “politically correct.”

It’s hard not to feel that I’m losing my voice. Or perhaps I’m saving it for something else.

We frequently hear the statistic that nearly half of teachers leave teaching within five years. I’m inclined to believe that politically incorrect loose cannons leave schools at a higher rate. Yet this is precisely the type of person you want teaching because he or she can inspire children to find their own voices.

Teachers are getting the message: Quiet down and behave. We need you, but we don’t value you.

If we want our public schools to create the next generation of thoughtful, engaged Americans, we need to support the people whose job it is to make an impact, and we need to work especially hard to retain the types of teachers who question the status quo and speak up even at the risk of being politically incorrect.

We could start by giving teachers free coffee—and how about decent coffee?—so that the party can move back to the kitchen. Otherwise, doors will close and the great ideas in education will be spoken separately and silently in lonely classrooms.

As Common Core curriculum moves closer to full implementation the discussion about its impact on students and teachers heats up. As you’ll read in today’s guest essay, “A Plain Little Thing” by Jeff Nguyen, the latest in the “Teachers in Their Own Words” series, there’s a “collision coming down the tracks.” The effects of these standards are far reaching and go beyond the obvious concerns of limiting teachers’ ability to tailor curriculum to the needs and interests of their current students. Some states are beginning to question the wisdom and feasibility of such a national course of studies. While Indiana has taken an even braver step and has “paused” its implementation of Common Core until those involved can fully study it. Jeff has long been involved in teaching. He has extensive experience working with a variety of K-12 students with special learning needs. Currently he is a kindergarten teacher in Florida and next year will be moving to first grade. Jeff is not only a practitioner but also a critical thinker when it comes to educational and social justice issues. Sounds pretty heavy, doesn’t it. But when you read Jeff’s piece you’ll see that he has a great blend of fact, insight, humor and Dr. Seuss wisdom—useful qualities for any teacher facing today’s crazy educational world. You can read more of Jeff’s writings at his blog http://deconstructingmyths.com .

“A Plain Little Thing”

“I know, up on top you are seeing great sights,

But down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.”

Dr. Seuss

As another school year draws to a close in the land of milk and Honey Boo Boo, students across the land are looking forward to enjoying their summer break, whether it be learning to dance Gangnam Style, playing video games until their thumbs fall off or avoiding the outdoors like the cooties. For teachers, this stretch is looked forward to with equal anticipation. It is a time to catch one’s breath, eat a leisurely lunch with actual grown-ups and go to the bathroom whenever they gosh darned feel like it. However, when they return to school in the fall both students and teachers, alike, will have one thing to look forward to…the Common Core curriculum.

Just as the professional judgment and expertise of the teacher has been minimized through the widespread reliance on standardized testing scores as a measure of student achievement and teacher effectiveness, the Common Core takes matters to its logical conclusion by replacing state and locally developed educational standards with a national curriculum that all states who sought “Race to the Top” funding are expected to follow in lockstep fashion. By 2014, students in Kindergarten and up will take end-of-year assessments called PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness of College and Careers) because, well, all 5 and 6 year-olds should be ready for college and careers before they can go to first grade.

Let me take just a minute to break down what life is like in a typical Kindergarten classroom, or at least in mine. Our day starts with 18 boys and girls, of varying backgrounds and abilities, who are all inclined to decide that they need to blow their noses, show me their loose tooth or new sneakers at the exact same time upon their arrival to the classroom. Invariably, before the morning announcements are over, half the students will need to use the bathroom or need a new pencil/eraser. Guaranteed, that by the end of the morning read-aloud, at least five students will inform me that a) they have a microscopic boo-boo, b) they’re hungry and/or c) they have to go to the bathroom again. As the day progresses and the stamina of the students begins to diminish, I remind them that they just need to pull themselves up by their untied bootstraps and finish their math problems or so help me, Bill Gates, himself, will descend from the heavens to reform their pint-sized, wayward selves.

In the past year, I have learned many things from my students. I have discovered that applesauce and ketchup mixed together are not gross but milk and peas are really yucky. I have found that 5 and 6 year-olds do not like to sit still for more than 1 minute and 43 seconds at a time but they do love to clap, sing and dance. I have ascertained that my students do not always like to talk about why Hansel felt conflicted when he was fed by the witch while Gretel was left to starve but they will gladly talk about their lunch, their baby sister, their pet hamster and pretty much anything else under the sun except how Hansel and Gretel can be compared to similar protagonists in the folk tale genre. I have also realized that children do love to learn, play and talk but it has to be within a context of authentic experiences that are carefully constructed so as to shape their thoughts and ideas in a meaningful way.

In my finite wisdom, I do foresee a collision coming down the tracks between the locomotive of Common Core and the caboose of poverty. I think special education students will feel the impact most heavily, a historically overrepresented population in the juvenile justice system who will find themselves increasingly alienated from the mainstream of school life. Eventually, though, all students and teachers are going to feel the burn. My lingering fear is that this is another “set the pins up to knock them down” initiative to widen the net of privatization and standardization of the curriculum at the expense of creativity, experiential and aesthetic learning as well as the minimizing of children’s literature as an agent of change and diversity.

I admit that I’m not too sure which Common Core standard was covered when my students learned in Social Studies one day about a brave turtle named Mack who was tired of being stepped on. One day he had had enough and he challenged Yertle, king of the turtles, who had built his kingdom on the backs of the unwashed turtles. When King Yertle refused to hear his plea and show compassion, Mack let loose the burp heard around the world. Mack’s burp caused Yertle to fall from his throne built high upon the backs of the other turtles and into the mud. It was a plain, little turtle doing a plain, little thing that brought liberation to the turtle citizenry. If only there were more Macks among us willing to make whatever burps, farts and sneezes are needed to bring the Yertles of the world back down to the mud with the rest of us so that our fellow turtles can be free to forage in peace.